


Unfinished Is Just a Beginning

by for_t2



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alone in the Mountains, Angst and Humor, Cabins, Cupcakes, Curses, Disappearances, F/F, Fear, Hopeful Ending, Horror, Meteorologists, Mildly Melodramatic, Vampires, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28854744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Laura wasn't scared of being sent to some isolated mountain lake to finish some meteorological experiments. Not at all scared. Especially not since the last scientist who had been sent there was never seen again
Relationships: Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein
Kudos: 28





	Unfinished Is Just a Beginning

As far as stone huts went, Laura had to admit this wasn't the worse she'd seen. It was small, but that made it cozy (and Laura-sized). And the rain tumbling down from the clouds and onto the grass and stone blocks of the hut's wall would sound lovely at night, especially if she could get a nice fire crackling along with it. Not to mention the view out across the lake and towards the mountains was absolutely breathtaking.

Really, the only problem was the bit where the last meteorologist who got this assignment never came back. Disappeared without a trace. Well, that and the lack of wifi, but mostly the mysteriously vanishing scientists. Laura wasn't particularly keen on the idea of being dragged to some horrible fate by some serial killer or some tortured spirit haunting the mountains of northern Wales.

Not that ghosts existed, of course. Laura Hollis was a scientist, and she was here to conduct important research on environmental systems in a state of historically unprecedented flux. She just wasn't sure that, in an entirely hypothetical scenario, her trusted can of bear spray (the traditional Hollis family weapon) would be entirely sufficient. It's just that she was alone, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but some barometres at her disposal. And a little stone hut.

It's just that there were missing scientists.

"Why can't I have gotten the lighthouse assignment instead?" She grumbled politely to herself as she set about surveying the land, trying to decide where the best place to set her equipment up would be tomorrow. "Stupid spooky mountains."

Sometimes, she wished she had gone to journalism school instead. But if she had, she'd have probably ended spending a career covering school board politics or something equally dreary. She wouldn't have been travelling the world. Wouldn't have been changing the world! (It was very important research)

Plus, she was Laura Hollis. No towering, misty, creepy... towering mountains were going to stop her from-- 

Laura screamed.

Someone was there.

On top of the mountain.

Watching her.

Her jump backwards almost carried her right into the water before she caught herself, and she almost screamed again at the ghastly echo of her first scream as it resonated through the silence of the valley. Almost.

The only reason she didn't was the fact that, just before she stopped herself from falling into the lake, she noticed the reflection of the mountain. The reflection of the mountain that didn't have anyone on top of them.

And when she looked back at the mountain, all she saw was the rolling clouds of new fog, growing darker as the sun dipped towards the horizon.

There was nobody.

She could've sworn she saw somebody. Somebody tall. Dark, draped in the blackest of cloth. Pale, skin barely distinct from the mist itself. Eyes... Eyes that cut right through her, deep into her very soul. Her poor, innocent, not-yet-mysteriously-disappeared-and-hopefully-not-doomed soul.

"Ghosts don't exist. Ghosts don't exist." It could be a monster. "Monsters don't exist. Monsters don't exist." Or a serial killer. "Serial killers don't-- Gah!" She forced her brain to stop looping. Forced herself to stand back up. "Get it together, Hollis."

Because she was Laura Hollis, and, ghosts or not, she had research to do.

*****

The flames crackling in the fireplace did indeed make a wonderful sound and the stone hut was warmer than Laura had expected. Even the little cot was, with some careful rearrangement of the blankets, more than passable. Maybe not somewhere where Laura would want to spend years in, but a week wouldn't be an uncomfortable experience. It was so surprisingly snug that she almost forgot to sleep.

Which, in fact, was turning out to be a bit of a problem.

She couldn't sleep.

It wasn't the non-existent ghosts that were troubling her, it was just the opposite. It was the excitement of being somewhere new, of all the experiments she could run out here (she was already coming up with a few extra modifications she could make to the protocols to measure some things the previous studies had passed over). It was like she was a tiny ball of energy stuck in a very comfortable bed.

So she tossed and turned and turned and tossed, before eventually just giving up, flopping on her back and staring at the shadows of the flames dancing on the ceiling. She stayed there for quite a while, listening to the rhythm of the rain against the stones, before reaching for her instant coffee pack and her TARDIS thermos. If she wasn't going to sleep, she might as well try and not sleep properly.

And besides, the dead of night was a great time to write. Even if she hadn't gone to journalism school, she never stopped writing as a hobby (even if it was mostly just fanfic). And she had an amazing idea for an epic tale of love and adventure and-- 

Something splashed loudly outside.

Something heavy.

Something very close to the hut.

Laura barely had time to jump before the splashing turned into something distinctly footstep-like. Marching right towards the hut.

Before something clinked against the hut wall. Before it dragged itself across the blocks in a sharp, high-pitched scratch of claws against stone.

Laura didn't have time to get to the door before the thing would get there first. Didn't have time to dig the bear spray out of her backpack. She just sat there, clutching her pillow, clenching her eyes shut, waiting for... 

The scratching faded away before it reached the door.

And the night fell back into silence.

*****

There could be plenty of rational explanations for the unearthly sounds Laura had to endure during the night. Plenty of explanations. So many of them, in fact, that Laura could barely focus on setting up her equipment the morning after.

It could've been the branches of a tree scraping against the wall. Except there were no trees that close to the hut. It could've been an eccentric feature of the hut's architecture. Except there were definitely long shallow claw marks on the outside wall that weren't there yesterday. Laura could've been hallucinating it. Except she had no family history of hallucinations. Maybe she was stepping on psychogenic plants which osmosed themselves through her boots. Except she didn't seem to be hallucinating anything else. It could've been a ghost. Except ghosts don't exist.

"Gah!" Laura mentally punched herself as she almost dropped a piece of heavy equipment on her foot for the fourth time.

This wasn't working.

Laura had barely slept. She was exhausted. Her mind was running wild on her. She needed a nap. And food. Food would be good. She was exhausted and hungry and she had packed some succulent sandwiches which she was really looking forward to. Food then a nap then back to work.

It was a good plan.

It was a plan that went to shit the moment she opened the hut's door.

She had barely taken a step in before she realised that everything was just slightly... off. Like someone had taken the hut, lifted it up, and tilted it to the left. Like... like someone had dug through her stuff.

Like someone was doing more than just watching her.

Laura's appetite disappeared. And there was definitely no way she was going to be able to take a nap now.

*****

To make things worse, Laura realised just after she'd settled down into the blankets to try and catch some sleep that her notebook was gone. The notebook that had all the stupid stuff she'd ever written in it. It didn't really matter that she wasn't a professional, she still liked the stuff she doodled, but they were for her. Not to mention all the mildly explicit fanfic that was in those pages. She really didn't like the idea of that falling into anyone's hands, especially not those of a ghost that was going to make her mysteriously disappear.

She hoped, at least, that it was a cute ghost. If she was going to die horribly at the hands of some malediction, it might as well be some disarmingly attractive gothic beauty, cursed to wander the mountains alone forever, a tragic tale of love and despair. Or something.

Could ghosts even be cute? So many horror movies disagreed on the topic. Maybe she should set up a study. "Cursed but Cute; Examining perceptions of the cuteness of spectres across--"

Ghosts weren't cute.

That terrifying scratching moving towards her door wasn't cute.

It wasn't disarmingly attractive gothic beauty, it was disarmingly terrifying. It felt like it was cutting right through Laura's skin to vibrate through her bones. It felt like... like she was going to die. She was going to die.

Laura buried her head in her arms as the claws reached the door.

As they pounded against the wood.

As they dug into the wood, a few splinters cracking through to Laura's side of the door.

All Laura could do was hold her breath and wait.

Somehow, the scratching stopped. The night fell back into silence.

And something in Laura snapped.

Before she knew it, she was stuffing her feet back into her boots, her flashlight gripped in her mouth.

"I'm no scared!" She found herself outside, swinging her thermos as a weapon (it was sturdy), daring that ghost to come and face her. "I know you're out there!" If she was going to die, she was going to do so fighting. "I'm not scared!"

Nothing came out at her.

"I'm not!" Laura took one last swing before pausing to try and calm her hyperventilating breath. "I'm not."

But still, nothing attacked her. Nothing at all.

In the darkness, all Laura could hear was the rain bouncing on the water of the lake, and all she could feel was the cool wind blowing her hair across her neck.

Laura tsked out loud. If an evil ghost was going to try and terrify her, it really shouldn't-- 

Laura jumped as she turned back towards the hut. As the flashlight beam hit the door. The claws had left marks. Had left words.

"Take a hint."

*****

In the world of mortals, there was stubborn and there was Laura Hollis. If she had a job to do, she was going to do it, and she had a job to do.

So the moment the morning sun started poking out over the mountain tops, the moment the first rays started reflecting off the water of the lake, she tromped out of the hut, boots squelching in the mud, and got to work.

It was, all in all, a very productive morning. She got all her instruments set up, managed to find a few rusted ones presumably left behind by the previously disappeared, and the first readings of the week all went pretty much perfectly.

She was in such a good mood, she was even considering breaking out the cupcakes she had baked for the trip. She was technically supposed to be saving them for the end, to celebrate the last day, but she had more than one, and it's pretty hard to resist cupcakes.

She wasn't even going to let her appetite be ruined by the bloodily disfigured carcass that the ghost had decided to dump on her doorstep (even if the entrails were a particularly vivid shade of red).

Nope.

Not bothered at all.

*****

It turns out that spending a couple of nights utterly terrified of a supernatural evil makes you forget just how exhausting a good day's work is (the good type of exhausting). Laura had made plans. She was going to catch this ghost in the act. But she had barely gotten her thermos ready before she passed right out.

Which, of course, meant that she up woke up in the middle of the night to find it looming over her.

"I told you to run."

"Ah!" Laura scrambled backwards in the cot, back hitting the wall when she couldn't go any further. She didn't want to die. Not like this. Not tonight. "You can't kill me!" Laura tried to sound imposing. "You won't kill me, you evil ghost demon thingy. Begone!"

The ghost didn't look impressed. "And how exactly are you going to stop me?"

"Uh..." To be fair, it was a good question. "I'm not very edible!" So she rationally decided to try begging for her life instead. "I'm too small. No muscles. I'm not vegan!"

"I don't know," the ghost leaned forward. Traced a finger across Laura's cheek. "I think I'd love to eat you up, cupcake."

Laura was not blushing. She was not going to say that the ghost was kinda hot. Absolutely out of the question. "Uh..."

The ghost snapped back her finger even quicker than it had came forward, and her voice went colder even quicker. "Go."

Laura's mind, unfortunately, was still in the process of processing earlier events.

"I'm giving you a chance." The ghost growled, and Laura caught just enough of a hint of fangs to snap her back into the moment. "So go."

"Since when do ghosts give people the chance to escape?" Maybe not entirely back into the moment. And then Laura remembered. "You killed the other scientists."

"First, I'm a vampire, not a ghost." The ~~ghost~~ vampire sneered at her. "Second, I didn't chose this curse."

Oh. A curse. Oh god, that was-- 

"So get out!" The vampire roared, and Laura was never going to forget the sight of just how sharp those fangs were. "Before I have to kill you too."

During the day, Laura had told herself that she would confront the vampire. But that was before she had the chance to run. A chance that Laura decided to ignore. "What do you mean, you didn't chose this curse?"

*****

"It was my mother."

The roof of the hut was not, as far as roofs go, the most comfortable Laura had ever experienced, but at least it wasn't raining anymore, and with the clouds gone, the stars were beautiful. And the vampire wasn't trying to kill her anymore.

"When I was born, the priest told her there was a prophecy." The vampire kept her eyes fixed on the reflections in the dark lake water. "That I was the prophecy. Destined to give birth to the next great king of Wales. The next King Arthur."

Hell, the vampire was even talking to her. And Laura was falling into the story. "What happened?"

The vampire snorted. "I ran away with the priest's daughter instead."

"Oh." Ooohhh. "Your mother cursed you for that?"

"My sister was always better at living up to mother's expectations."

"That's horrible." Laura couldn't believe it. Laura was furious. "No, really, that's terrible. She had no right to curse you for that. No right at all."

"What's done is done." The vampire sighed, and it was lonelier than the ages. "I have to live an eternity knowing that if I ever meet someone I could fall in love with, I'll have to kill her."

"What happens if you don't?"

"If you wanted to see a ghost..." She trailed off and sat silent for the longest moment. "My mother never understood mercy."

In fact, furious didn't really begin to describe what Laura was feeling. What was burning inside her. "How can we fight her?"

"This isn't one of your stories, cupcake," the vampire chuckled. "Even if they're good stories, the real world is a much darker place."

"I don't care." Thermos and bear spray or not, Laura decided that this was a fight she could take. That she wasn't going to back down from. "I'm not scared."

The vampire chuckled again, smaller, more to herself than to anyone else. "I am."

"Well, I have don't fangs or claws." Or any of the cool vampire abilities, but that didn't really matter. "So I guess we'll have to work together."

"And what am I supposed to do when it ends badly?"

"It won't." Laura wouldn't let it. "But since you stole my notebook, there's a story that I didn't have time to finish. If it ends badly, you have to finish it for me." No power in the verse could stop her when she set her mind on something. "But when it ends well, you have to keep telling me your story. And you have to let me help you finish it."

The vampire looked at her. Her lips twitched. Broke into a tiny, hopeful smile. "I might be able to do that."

"Good." And Laura was smiling too. "So what should I call it?"

The vampire thought it over. "My name is Carmilla."

Carmilla. It was a beautiful name. "I like it." Laura stood up. Brushed the dirt off on her trousers and reached out for Carmilla's hand. Held it tight. "So, Carmilla, where's the best place to start fighting?"


End file.
